Assistant Editor Cally Carswell wrote on Monday about how geography and development made such a disaster inevitable. Five to 18 inches of rain pounded down across 17 counties in just a few days (average annual precipitation in the area is 12-18 inches). Many of the consequences are immediate and obvious – six people are confirmed dead, hundreds are stranded or missing, thousands have been displaced from their homes. At least 500 miles of road and 50 bridges have been destroyed; nearly 20,000 homes have been damaged or completely wrecked. Sewage treatment plants have overflowed, and many communities cannot use wells that supply municipal drinking water. Cleaning up and repairing all the damage will take years and could cost well over a billion dollars.

Less obvious are the long-term effects of such a major inundation of water. For example, standing water could breed an early-fall crop of mosquitoes, in a region of the West that has already seen cases of sometimes-deadly West Nile virus (which is carried by the flying pests).

Flooding in Loveland, Colo. Courtesy Flickr user Ed Ogle.

Far more alarming, however, is the fact that the flooded region is a major oil and gas producing area. About 1,900 oil and gas wells are now shut off because of the flooding, says the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, and 600 workers are out inspecting and fixing those wells. Pipelines are sagging and leaking; waste pits are overflowing. Activists are calling on the state's oil and gas industry to disclose what chemicals may be leaking from flooded well sites.

Among officials’ chief concerns is the possibility that harmful pollution has been unleashed into the floodwater, especially in the oil and gas drilling center of Weld County.

“Many contaminants, such as raw sewage, as well as potential releases of chemicals from homes, businesses and industry, may be contained in the floodwaters," Mark Salley, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, told the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Fracking and operating oil and gas facilities in floodplains is extremely risky. Flood waters can topple facilities and spread oil, gas, and cancer-causing fracking chemicals across vast landscapes making contamination and clean-up efforts exponentially worse and more complicated.

The Environmental Protection Agency will have a role in that cleanup. The agency, writes a Region 8 staffer, "is beginning to assess water quality impacts from various sources, including oil and gas production. These efforts include investigating spill reports and collecting information on oil and hazardous material discharges. EPA is coordinating with FEMA, state and local agencies, and producers to identify damaged infrastructure and prioritize containment and cleanup activities. We are also working closely with partners to assess flood impacts and response needs associated with drinking water, wastewater, and hazardous waste."

The effects on wildlife, tourism and recreation will be far-reaching as well. Fishermen and rafters may find altered river channels and fish species may be redistributed, as flood waters temporarily linked creeks, ponds and rivers. Open space areas surrounding the city of Boulder, which saw some of the most severe flooding, are in rough shape, with trails blocked and washed out.

A washed-out road in Boulder County. Courtesy US Army.

Colorado relies on tourism for a large share of its economic activity, and officials worry that the flooding, especially on the heels of huge wildfires, will scare away out-of-staters. The Associated Press reports:

The flooding has struck at the very mountains that give the state its identity and attract millions of hikers, campers and skiers. Months and possibly years of painstaking, expensive repairs lie ahead, but Colorado officials must also deal with a second problem — the risk that catastrophic damage could keep tourists away, even from places that are unharmed.

Some tourism operators want to see a media campaign to counter the photos of raging rivers and towns ruined by muddy floodwaters.

And some of the flooding’s most painful effects are not water pollution or economic damage, but the toll such a disaster takes on mental health. From a recent Public Library of Science study:

Accounts of the psychosocial impacts of flood events suggest that they can have significant effects on people’s wellbeing, relationships and mental health. Flooding can pose substantial social and welfare problems that may continue over extended periods of time because of not only being flooded (the primary stressor), but also because of the secondary stressors (those stressors that are indirectly related to the initial extreme event, i.e., economic stress associated with re-building)…

Another study from England found long-term physical and mental problems in those displaced by floods:

… Of those affected by floods overall, 64% said that their health had been adversely affected, most commonly with stress, anxiety and depression, but also with a range of conditions, including dermatitis, worsening asthma, arthritis and chest infections… many are suffering depression, with hardship in temporary accommodation, negotiating with insurance companies and mortgage companies while their houses are rebuilt, loss of social contact and strain on personal relationships. However, even those returning to their homes can experience ongoing anxiety...

For a thoughtful personal take on the emotional toll of flooding, see this essay by award-winning writer (and occasional HCN contributor) Laura Pritchett.

Small businesses fighting to stay open during the financial challenges of the past few years aren't likely to have paid the additional insurance premiums that would help them recover from recent floods, insurance-industry experts say.

Add that to the mantra of drought heard in recent years, and it's even less likely a business owner would have paid the additional premiums for flood coverage.

… Even a well-insured business — one that even planned for loss of revenue because of a blizzard, for instance — is likely to be left to fend for itself after a flood. … The hard-line fact, said Jim Blair, CEO of Integrated Risk Management Solutions in Littleton, is that "80 percent of small businesses impacted by this type incident, no matter what, are not in business within a year."

A man in a canoe inspects flood damage at his Front Range home. Courtesy of Flickr user Lauryn McDowell.

Farmers are hurting too, says another Denver Post story (which also notes the silver lining to flooding – drought-hardened fields will soak up much-needed water, and nearly-empty reservoirs will refill).

The damage to Colorado's multibillion-dollar agriculture industry – the state's third-largest at $8.5 billion last year – is vast: Aerial footage shows broad swaths of inundated farmland. Rows of crops up and down the South Platte River were submerged, including corn, lettuce, onions and soybeans. … Damaged roads will also have a big effect for farmers and ranchers. With transportation routes impaired, it's going to take them longer to move their products, adding fuel and labor costs.

Although the Front Range floods are a horrendous disaster, and their impact will be felt for many years, let’s also take a minute to think about people suffering in floods elsewhere around the globe, many much larger than Colorado’s deluge. In Mexico, 57 have died in major flooding around Acapulco this week. In West Africa, floods have killed 84 people and displaced more than 40,000 this year, according to the U.N., which also reports that 25 recently died in Philippines flooding affecting nearly 3 million.

Meanwhile, here in Paonia, on the Western Slope of Colorado, afternoon thunderstorms are rumbling. It’s a sound I would have welcomed a few weeks ago. Now it just seems ominous.

Jodi Peterson is HCN's managing editor.

]]>No publisherGrowth & SustainabilityBlog Post2013/09/19 00:00:00 GMT-6ArticleSee you in Octoberhttp://www.hcn.org/issues/45.16/see-you-in-october
Keep up during our fall publishing break with continued coverage online. As we do four times a year, High Country News is skipping an issue. We'll be back in your mailbox around Oct. 14. In the meantime, keep up with us at hcn.org, and eat as many homegrown tomatoes as you can; they won't last forever.

Summer visitors Longtime subscriber Brian Jatlin came by our Paonia, Colo., headquarters to say hello; he was in town just long enough to seek out some of the valley's famous peaches while en route to nearby Marcellina Mountain. The Fort Collins, Colo., native and self-described "bird nerd" has been a ranger at Grand Canyon for the past 11 years; he once mentored current editorial fellow Sarah Keller on a hawk-watching project there.

As part of a five-state road trip to visit family and friends, subscribers Theresa Taggart and Michael O'Connell of Taos, N.M., spent a night in Paonia and came to the office chock-full of questions, story ideas and enthusiasm. Having moved to the Southwest from Seattle seven years ago, Theresa and Michael say they particularly enjoy stories about water resources and politics.

They may live in Hogansville, Ga., but Dennis and Dana Austin's hearts will forever be in the West. The couple lived off the grid in Alaska in the '80s and regularly undertake "marathon road trips" all over the West, including the one that brought them back to Paonia, more than 20 years after their first visit. At first, the road trips were a way to find the perfect Western town to call home, but after family obligations called them back to Georgia, they decided to maintain their connection to the region by reading HCN.

]]>No publisherCommunitiesDear Friends2013/09/16 05:00:00 GMT-6ArticleThe reading seasonhttp://www.hcn.org/issues/45.16/the-reading-season
Fall brings a new crop of noteworthy books, both fiction and nonfiction.After the summer's whirl of activity, after the mountains have been hiked and the rivers have been run and the garden has been weeded for what we hope to God is the final round, it's a good time to kick back with a book. Fall invites a slower pace, gives us lazy afternoons by the woodstove to lose ourselves in words. This autumn's crop of great new reads includes offerings from much-loved authors, like T.C. Boyle Stories II, a wicked-funny story collection from the California master, and the latest from Ivan Doig, Sweet Thunder, about the further adventures of Morrie Morgan from The Whistling Season. For fans of now-deceased mystery writer Tony Hillerman, his daughter, Anne Hillerman, has written Spider Woman's Daughter, continuing the saga of Navajo sleuths Leaphorn and Chee. And lesser-known authors have produced some intriguing titles. In the novel In Calamity's Wake, Canadian writer Natalee Caple imagines Calamity Jane's abandoned daughter on a quest to find her notorious mother. Oregon author Don Waters' Sunland is an authentic and comical novel set in Tucson and the Sonoran Desert. From Chicano noir author Ito Romo comes The Border Is Burning, haunting stories that take place along the chaotic, often violent border between the U.S. and Mexico. Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere: A Memoir is itinerant writer Poe Ballantine's exploration of a murder in Nebraska and of his High Plains town. The endless wolf wars are chronicled by Aimee Lyn Eaton in Collared: Politics and Personalities in Oregon's Wolf Country. We're proud to note new books by HCN contributors, too: Jared Farmer's Trees in Paradise: A California History, Kathie Durbin's posthumous Bridging a Great Divide: The Battle for the Columbia River Gorge, and a memoir from Bryce Andrews, Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West.

We're also keeping an eye out for some important works that won't be out till spring: The Crusades of Cesar Chavez, described as the "first complete and impartial biography" of the labor leader, by Miriam Pawel, and Poison Spring, an exposé of the Environmental Protection Agency by E.G. Vallianatos, a former agency insider.

Below are some of our top picks, listed alphabetically by author. If a book is currently available, no publication month is shown.

FICTION

Rain Dogs Baron R. Birtcher, The Permanent Press

T.C. Boyle Stories II T.C. Boyle, Viking Adult, October

In Calamity's Wake Natalee Caple, Bloomsbury, October

Return to Oakpine Ron Carlson, Viking

Killing Custer: A Wind River Mystery Margaret Coel, Berkley, September

Sweet Thunder Ivan Doig, Riverhead

The Best of McSweeney's Dave Eggers, McSweeney's Publishing, November

The Book of Jonah Joshua Max Feldman, Raincoast Books, February 2014

Kuessipan Naomi Fontaine, Arsenal Pulp Press, October

Spider Woman's Daughter Anne Hillerman, Harper, October

Road to Nowhere and Other New Stories from the Southwest D. Seth Horton, Brett Garcia Myhren, editors, University of New Mexico Press

The Shadows of Owls John Keeble, University of Washington Press, October

Where They Bury You Steven W. Kohlhagen, Sunstone Press

Desert Death-Song: A Collection of Western Stories Louis L'Amour, Skyhorse Publishing, October

The Thicket Joe R. Lansdale, Mulholland Books

Crow-Blue Adriana Lisboa, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, October

If I'd Known You Were Coming Kate Milliken, University of Iowa Press, November

Into the Night: Tales of Nocturnal Wildlife Expeditions Rick Adams, editor, University Press of Colorado, October

Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West Bryce Andrews, Simon & Schuster, Atria Books

Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere: A Memoir Poe Ballantine, Hawthorne Books

Rough Breaks: A Wyoming High Country Memoir Laurie Wagner Buyer, University of Oklahoma Press

Accomplishing NAGPRA: Perspectives on the Intent, Impact, and Future of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Sangita Chari, Jaime M.N. Lavallee, Oregon State University Press, November

Bridging a Great Divide: The Battle for the Columbia River Gorge Kathie Durbin, Oregon State University Press, November

Collared: Politics and Personalities in Oregon's Wolf Country Aimee Lyn Eaton, Oregon State University Press, October

Almost White: Forced Confessions of a Latino in Hollywood Rick Najera, SmileyBooks

The Crusades of Cesar Chavez Miriam Pawel, Bloomsbury, March 2014

Vacationland: Tourism and Environment in the Colorado High Country William Philpott, University of Washington Press

Death Valley National Park: A History Hal K. Rothman, Char Miller, University of Nevada Press

New Mexico: A History Joseph P. Sánchez, Robert L. Spude, Art Gómez, University of Oklahoma Press, October

Renewable: The World-Changing Power of Alternative Energy Jeremy Shere, St. Martin's Press, November

A Bushel's Worth: An Ecobiography Kayann Short, Torrey House Press

Poison Spring E.G. Vallianatos, Bloomsbury, April 2014

]]>No publisherCommunitiesBooks2013/09/16 05:00:00 GMT-6ArticleMapping our place in the West http://www.hcn.org/issues/45.16/mapping-our-place-in-the-west
This special books & essays issue considers the ways in which we use maps, literal and metaphoric, to understand a landscape. I'm a Coloradan because of a map. Six years before I was born, my newly married parents, seeking to leave cloudy Tacoma, Wash., for a bigger, sunnier city, spread out aRand McNally map of the West. Phoenix was too hot; L.A. seemed alluring but unreal, a land of movie stars and palm trees. Drawn by climate and mountains, they finally picked Denver.

Other Westerners came out here much earlier, of course, following rougher maps. Perhaps they traveled the Oregon Trail or the Santa Fe Trail, guided by landmarks like Chimney Rock or Raton Pass. Their maps were quite different from those of the region's Native occupants, which were not so much a representation of physical distances and features as they were narratives, describing seasons, events and the time a journey took.

This HCN special books and essays issue is a celebration of all of these ways of knowing a landscape and locating ourselves within it. With some of the West's most insightful authors as our guides, each fall we briefly set aside the news to create this special issue and take a more reflective look at our region.

The issue features a cover story by Craig Childs, esteemed Southwestern writer and HCN contributing editor, who writes about his still-evolving mental map of Utah's Canyonlands. Through countless explorations alone and with friends and family, Childs has woven a set of waypoints to guide him through the slickrock: "Not all maps are made of paper. The best ones are spooled in memory, better served by songs and stories than something that lays flat in a drawer." Joe Wilkins, Oregon poet and essayist, follows his grandmother's mental map of southern Montana to learn how his family's history intertwines with that of the Crow Indians. And Alaska-based Michael Engelhard, journeying across the Arctic, visits Inupiaq elders who trace their hunting and fishing routes on his USGS maps.

The issue also profiles Dave Imus, an Oregon cartographer whose maps express not just geography but character, and Ruth Kirk, a guidebook author ahead of her time, as well as other intriguing Western writers, such as Percival Everett, Richard Rodriguez and David Mason. And it contains reviews of several new titles, including Jedediah Rogers' history of Utah's wilderness road wars, reviewed by former HCN publisher Ed Marston.

Perhaps this issue will inspire you to pull out your own Western maps and seek out new geographies to explore. Every now and then, I daydream over maps of Montana and Oregon, thinking a bit wistfully about Bozeman, Missoula or Ashland. But then I realize that the state my parents chose all those years ago is the state I have chosen, too, the place that holds my life history -- and my heart.

]]>No publisherCommunitiesEditor's noteEssays2013/09/16 05:00:00 GMT-6ArticleLynn Scarlett, top Bush official, joins The Nature Conservancyhttp://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/lynn-scarlett-top-bush-official-joins-the-nature-conservancy
It's no surprise that federal officials often end up employed by various think-tanks, nonprofits and trade groups once their stints on Capitol Hill are over. For example, here's where some George W. Bush administration folks have gone: Dale Hall, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director, is now CEO of Ducks Unlimited. Dave Tenny, who headed the Forest Service, founded the National Alliance of Forest Owners, which lobbies for policies that "advance the economic and environmental benefits of privately-owned forests." And former Interior Secretary Gale Norton started her own consulting firm, Norton Regulatory Strategies, to help energy, mining and other companies navigate "the toughest regulatory challenges."

Lynn Scarlett, former deputy Secretary of Interior, is now public policy director at The Nature Conservancy.

The latest announcement concerns former Interior deputy secretary Lynn Scarlett, who's going to work for The Nature Conservancy, as managing director for public policy. TNC describes itself as "the leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people."

At first glance, the choice might seem, well, surprising. Scarlett, you'll recall, was second in command at the younger Bush's Interior Department. And that administration was, of course, notorious for its anti-environmentalist, pro-corporate policies.

In 2002, during Bush's first term, we noted that officials in Interior and the Department of Agriculture had "no game plan for the public lands." The next year, we wrote about a deal that opened hundreds of areas proposed for wilderness protection to drilling ("Wilderness takes a massive hit" and "Two decades of hard work, plowed under"). We ran other stories about how Bush's Bureau of Land Management made oil and gas drilling the top priority. Our 2007 story "As Interior Turns" charted the corruption and scandals that plagued the Interior Department. Once Bush left office, we devoted an entire issue to examining his administration's environmental policies and considering how the damage might be repaired ("What a Mess").

Given all that, why would a group like The Nature Conservancy hire one of Bush's top Interior officials? Well, for one, Scarlett's an outdoorswoman: an avid hiker, birder, and canoeist, she also serves on the boards of the National Parks Conservation Association, the National Wildlife Refuge Association, and the American Hiking Society. More importantly, she didn't really seem to reflect the more rapacious aspects of the administration she served. Along with her boss Gale Norton, she emphasized collaboration as a way to solve thorny public land management issues. And as we reported in a 2002 story, she worked on developing landowner incentive programs, such as tax credits and assistance designed to encourage property owners to get rid of invasive species.

In 2006, the then-editor-in-chief of HCN, Greg Hanscom, ended up on a plane with Scarlett – and surprised himself by discovering a lot of common ground. He wrote the following account of their encounter:

On a flight early (in) the morning, I found myself sitting next to none other than Lynn Scarlett, the deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior. I’d never met Scarlett in person, but I’d spoken to her on the phone a few years before, when I was working on a story about a team of Forest Service employees whose jobs had been outsourced to private contractors. In the story, I’d given Scarlett her say, but I’d also gone out of my way to expose what I believed to be her real agenda: emasculating federal environmental agencies in order to turn their duties over to corporations.

There I was — a guy who had done my best, for almost a decade, to force HCN readers into some pretty agonizing conversations about the West — caught in a surprise encounter with a woman I believed to be my nemesis. …

Scarlett asked that I not share the conversation with readers, and admittedly, it was too early in the morning for official quotes.But I will say that, as we jetted over the vast gas fields of western Wyoming, we found more areas of agreement than I ever would have imagined.

Looking back on that conversation, Hanscom today writes, "Scarlett was indeed greener than the Bush administration. She really bought the whole "4 Cs" thing that Norton pushed (communication, consultation and cooperation, all in the service of conservation). Her comments to me on the plane were along those lines: It's tough to get buy-in for collaboration when the bosses are pushing to drill, mine, and pillage at all costs. She's a perfect fit for TNC."

Lynn Scarlett at the Grand Canyon. Courtesy American Hiking Society.

E&E News sees her similarly, noting how her views on conservation fit those of TNC:

Before she joined the Bush administration, Scarlett served as president of the libertarian Reason Foundation, where she advocated for "a new environmentalism," one that promotes incentives to encourage private-sector stewardship of lands and natural resources.

TNC, one of the world's largest environmental organizations, works closely with private landowners to purchase lands and secure conservation easements that prevent sensitive landscapes from being developed.

In many ways, its work aligns with Scarlett's emphasis on providing incentives for resource protection.

One woman I would include in my list is current Deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett. She was unscathed by the mismanagement under Norton and shares McCain's environmental, libertarian philosophy.

We look forward to seeing how Scarlett helps promote landscape-scale conservation policies in her new job; she'll be able to accomplish much more good for the environment, we think, than she got to under the Bush administration.

Jodi Peterson is HCN's managing editor.

]]>No publisherPoliticsBlog Post2013/09/05 00:00:00 GMT-6ArticleSummer Visitorshttp://www.hcn.org/issues/45.15/summer-visitors
Senator Michael Bennet and family, among others, visit HCN headquarters. Here in HCN's hometown of Paonia, Colo., the peaches and sweet corn are ripening, and we've been welcoming lots of visitors from around the West.

Longtime subscribers Phyllis Hasheider and Jim McKee of Longmont, Colo., stopped by on their way home after a drive on the San Juan Skyway, a scenic route that passes through mountain towns like Silverton, Telluride and Durango. Now retired, they used to work for IBM; today, both serve as volunteer naturalists for City of Boulder Parks and Open Space.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and his wife, Susan Daggett, residents of Denver, came through our headquarters with their daughters Anne, Halina and Carolina. The family attended Paonia's annual Cherry Days festival July 4 as part of a road trip that also included a two-day float down the Green River, a visit to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and a stay at an organic farm. Noting the recent infusion of young women into HCN's editorial staff, Bennet joked that his daughters ought to apply to work here -- particularly his youngest, Anne, who not only got down and dirty on her first Western river trip but then showed up at our office in a faux-fur pillbox hat, matching cape and gold lamé gloves. Seems like she'd fit right in.

Taking a break from weeding at Thistle Whistle farm in nearby Hotchkiss, Helen Katich brought her Denver visitors, Ellen Jaskol and Steve Katich, to Paonia for a tour. Helen first visited High Country News during college, with the INVST Community Studies Program at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Ellen, formerly a photojournalist with the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News, is a freelance photographer. Steve covered several small southern Colorado counties during former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm's campaign and continues to work in governmental relations.

Al Schroder, a 15-year subscriber, made his first visit to Paonia along with Joan Groff. They were traveling from Tucson, Ariz., to visit family in Pennsylvania, camping along the way. After a weekend enjoying the Fourth of July festivities with throngs of people in Silverton, Colo., Al and Joan were happy to be in quieter places like the Black Canyon of the Gunnison –– and our offices.

Dave Spildie, from Missoula, Mont., celebrated his retirement from the Forest Service with a road trip through Colorado. He stopped in Paonia on a visit to places and friends from the 14 years he lived in the state. A longtime subscriber -- 20 or 25 years, he's not sure -- Dave wishes everyone knew about High Country News. Hey, so do we!

A longtime HCN subscriber from Oracle, Ariz., Robert Vallier, came to say hello, and told us he once started his own local newspaper, The Oracle Oracle. The Oracle's days have passed, but he and his wife, Jeannette, still write periodically for the Turbo Diesel Register. A week and a half into a camping trip through Colorado, they stopped in Paonia with their traveling companion and next-door-neighbor, Chuck Bird. Chuck is also a writer, who enjoys creating science fiction stories for teens. The office wasn't quite what Robert had imagined. "It's nicer!" he said.

]]>No publisherCommunitiesDear Friends2013/09/02 05:00:00 GMT-6ArticleFirst settlement reached in Utah's contentious road claimshttp://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/first-settlement-reached-in-utahs-contentious-road-claims
If you've spent much time wandering around the rural West, especially in southern Utah, you may have come across an extensive network of highways. You might not have recognized them as such, though -- these "highways," in many cases, are nothing more than cow paths, faint two-tracks, and sandy washes. But an antique Western law allows many of them to be considered legitimate public roads.

Revised Statute 2477, passed in 1866, allowed for the construction of highways across public land. It was intended to help settlers move into the West. But in the past decade, it's become a way for counties to claim rights-of-way on old roads, no matter what shape they're in – a move that thwarts potential wilderness designation and opens sensitive areas to motorized use and development (for more background on the law's convoluted history, see our stories "Road warriors back on the offensive" and "The Road to Nowhere").

Since 2011, 22 Utah counties have filed lawsuits against the federal Bureau of Land Management, claiming rights-of-way on 36,000 miles of mostly-dubious roads, many crossing national parks, national monuments, and wilderness study areas. Now, the first court settlement in those lawsuits has been reached. The federal Bureau of Land Management, the state of Utah, Juab County and three environmental groups came up with a way to handle disputed roads in the Deep Creek Mountains wilderness study area west of Salt Lake City.

Juab County abandoned its claim to this road in the Deep Creek Mountains in a recent settlement. Courtesy Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

Earthjustice represented the Sierra Club, Wilderness Society and Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance in the suit, filed in 2005. Under the settlement, Juab County will receive three rights-of-way on routes that it proved had been in use before 1976 (when R.S. 2477 was repealed). However, it cannot widen or pave those roads, which access scenic camping areas and historic sites in the Deep Creek Mountains. The county also agrees to give up its other R.S. 2477 claims, put restrictions on off-highway vehicle use, and waive any future road claims in wilderness areas or proposed wilderness. For its part, the BLM must re-open access to the Camp Ethel area. "This settlement is a great first step and we hope this will serve as a template on how to resolve other public road lawsuits involving similar types of road claims. It also demonstrates that the state and counties will take preservation issues into account when resolving road claims," said Utah Attorney General John Swallow in a statement quoted in Greenwire.

The second settlement in the Utah cases might come in Kane County. In March, a federal district judge approved 12 of the county's 15 R.S. 2477 claims, including on roads that cross the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, but that decision has been appealed by both sides. In an interesting twist, in May two Kane County ranchers filed papers seeking to get roads on their lands removed from the suit; they want those roads to remain private, rather than being opened to the public, reports the Salt Lake Tribune:

Their intervention marks a new front in Utah's road controversies, pitting counties against their own residents.

"Nobody has taken into account these private property owners," (Chris) Odekerken's lawyer, Bruce Baird, says. "The county is in a philosophical fight with the feds. It's a fight between two dinosaurs, and my clients are the rodents scurrying underneath trying to not get squished."

And the dinosaurs may soon be battling over much more than just Utah. R.S. 2477 claims are on the Vermont Law School's "Top 10 Environmental Watch List" for 2013. Such claims could affect millions of acres of public land all across the West -- in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. As the school sums it up:

Other western states are likely watching Utah’s land grab, waiting to see what the federal courts will do with these claims. Several states, including Alaska, have earmarked funds for the study of “potential” R.S. 2477 roads, and they will likely increase funding if the Utah lawsuits succeed. States like Nevada, the birthplace of the original Sagebrush Rebellion, are also ready and waiting to jump on the R.S. 2477 bandwagon if the federal courts validate even a small percentage of Utah’s claims.

It'll be interesting to see how the other 29 lawsuits are resolved – and how long it takes. Stay tuned. And if you want even more background on Utah's road wars, check out this book coming in November from historian Jedediah Rogers, called Roads in the Wilderness: Conflict in Canyon Country.

Jodi Peterson is HCN's managing editor.

]]>No publisherGrowth & SustainabilityBlog Post2013/08/21 00:00:00 GMT-6ArticleFishermen, writers and cyclists come to callhttp://www.hcn.org/issues/45.14/fishermen-writers-and-cyclists-come-to-call
Summer is the busy, busy season for HCN visitors.Colin Glover of Denver stopped by our Paonia, Colo., headquarters on a seven-day fly-fishing trip that had already taken him and his friends to Durango, Buena Vista and Ouray. When asked what stretch of the Gunnison's North Fork, which passes through Paonia, he planned to fish, he shrugged and said he wasn't sure. Fortunately, the group brought a guidebook: "We just need to sit down, have a beer and figure out what's next." Happy casting, Colin!

From Littleton, Colo., came Richard Nolde, who had been visiting friends in Aspen, where he was taken aback by the crowds at Maroon Lake. Nolde prefers Wyoming's lonely Wind River Range, where you can be 25 miles from the closest road, and where he is a recognizable figure due to the "ancient" external-frame Kelty backpack he customized to carry his camera gear. A relative newcomer to the West, Nolde says now that he's here, he "never ever" wants to return to the East Coast. We hope he sticks around, too!

Writer and HCN contributor Eduardo Rey Brummel dropped by to say hello during travels from his home base in Salida, Colo. (He described his ties to the Arkansas River there in his essay "River Home," in the April 26 issue.) He greeted us with the most gracious and courtly bow we've ever seen, and stayed to chat about writing with our editorial staff.

Steven Sesnie and Tom Sisk pedaled over McClure Pass, elevation 8,763 feet, from nearby Carbondale to Paonia, pausing briefly to catch their breath at our office. They were on the over 450-mile, six-day Bicycle Tour of Colorado, which starts and ends in Cañon City, with stops in Buena Vista, Carbondale, Paonia, Crested Butte and Salida. Steven lives in Cedar Crest, N.M., and works as a spatial ecologist at the Albuquerque office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Tom, a Flagstaff resident, teaches environmental science at Northern Arizona University.

David Norris, from Boulder, Colo., came by on a toasty June afternoon on his way to meet with local endocrinology expert Theo Colborn. HCN wrote about his work in "The Yuck Factor," our Sept. 17, 2007, cover story.

The Johnson family (TJ, Quinn and Stephanie) of Olympia, Wash., stopped to see us en route to the 40th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival in late June. "We wanted to see where summer is actually taking place," TJ said, noting that Olympia's weather had been cool and rainy. He's involved with urban farming and is helping launch a farm incubator to help young growers get a start. Stephanie keeps bees and is the city's public art coordinator. They brought us a taste of early summer from their home -- a container of juicy, sweet Northwest strawberries. Thanks for the treat!

]]>No publisherCommunitiesDear Friends2013/08/19 05:00:00 GMT-6ArticleWriting down the boneshttp://www.hcn.org/issues/45.14/writing-down-the-bones
The story behind this issue's cover feature, about a startling dinosaur discovery in Montana and ensuing scientific controversy. This issue features a story that was more than two years in the writing -- and at least 60 million in the making. In 2011, Montana Hodges was studying fossil management on public lands as part of her master's thesis in journalism at the University of Montana. "Originally," she says, "I was going to do my thesis on whether you can copyright fossil molds and replicas." She spoke to paleontologist Peter Larson about a case involving an $8.2 million lawsuit over the copyright on a replica of a Tyrannosaurus rex jaw. And then, she says, they wandered off-topic "and started talking about dinosaur specimens, about how many are not complete skeletons but just 10 to 15 percent of a skeleton."

Larson told her about a unique pair of dinosaur skeletons that were complete. Discovered six years earlier in eastern Montana, the bones were articulated from nose to tail. Even more startling, Larson said, was the fact that the two appeared to have killed each other. "I drove to Fort Peck the next day," Montana says, "and asked to see the dinosaurs at CK Preparations," the commercial fossil preparator housing the pair. "I'd never seen anything like it. I could not believe they were just sitting in a storage shed." She abandoned her copyright project and began trying to figure out why no one had purchased the jaw-dropping fossils, priced at nearly $9 million, and why no paleontologists had published papers on them. "I interviewed paleontologists in six different states. I thought maybe the bones were just overpriced, but it turned out that the story was deeper than that." She spent the next eight months digging into it and then writing about her discoveries, which went to the heart of a long-standing controversy between commercial fossil hunters and academics.

This summer, Montana is working with paleontologists in Alaska's Denali National Park, where evidence of dinosaurs was discovered in 2005. Duck-billed hadrosaurs, meat-eating theropods and others traveled across a big mudflat, she says, leaving hundreds of footprints, clawmarks and skin impressions -- but so far, not a single bone. Paleontologist Anthony Fiorillo and other scientists think that finding bones may be just a matter of time, though.

"It's so hard to access (new fossil sites)," says Montana. "We backpack in, knee-deep in muskeg and mosquitos, and it takes three hours to go a mile." She's helping advise the park on how to protect and manage its paleontological resources. "The public wants to see the tracks," she says, "but the backcountry rangers want to keep the impact low, and researchers want to keep people away so they can study it."

In 2012, Montana published her thesis on the scientific struggle over the "Dueling Dinosaurs." Now, High Country News has the privilege of bringing you an updated version of the amazing story she unearthed.

]]>No publisherCommunitiesMontanaEditor's noteEssays2013/08/19 05:00:00 GMT-6Article'Camping 101 on steroids' gets minority kids into the outdoorshttp://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/a-day-at-camp-moreno
On a recent Sunday morning, a dozen young boys splashed gleefully in an alpine stream in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park. Wearing rubber boots and wielding fine-meshed nets, they reached into the icy water, rolled rocks aside, and scooped up the flotsam released into the current. Then they dumped the contents into plastic trays held by patient park rangers, who helped the kids figure out what they'd found. "See that little round thing? What do you think it is? Yep, it's a fish egg!" "That wriggly bug there, that's a stonefly." The boys were mostly fascinated, and when it was time to go, one of them plopped down on the bank of the stream and said, "I don't ever want to leave!" Another studious-looking youngster was eager to get back indoors, though: "Video games are more fun," he announced with a frown.

Camp Moreno participants check out a stuffed bird while on a tour of Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.

The boys, ages 6 to 11, belong to multicultural Cub Scout and Boy Scout troops in urban Denver. Along with troop leaders and a handful of parents, they were attending a program designed to help diverse inner-city youth and their families connect with our country's national parks. Camp Moreno, founded by Roberto Moreno and his wife Louise in 2011, operates in seven national parks around the West, including Saguaro and Grand Canyon. Funded by individual donors and grants, the nonprofit has twice received a $15,000 grant from the National Parks Foundation's "America's Best Idea" program. Its goal is to increase visits to public lands by people of color, who now make up more than half of the U.S. population under the age of five. "They're the future voters, and if they're not involved in public lands, they won't vote to protect them," says Roberto. "Our public lands are in jeopardy, and we have to make sure the outdoors is relevant to (minorities') lives, that they value outdoor experiences."

This Camp Moreno program in Rocky Mountain National Park gets underway around 11 am on Saturday, July 20th. At the Moraine Park campground, Roberto welcomes about 30 kids and their families, many of whom have never been camping before. "These are your parks," he tells them. "They belong to you, and you should be using them." A few parents nod, but most of the kids just stare at him, apparently a little stunned by the thought that the pines and wildflowers and peaks all around actually belong to them. Roberto shares his personal story: "My parents were campesinos. They worked outdoors, and they didn't go camping. But in 1956 my dad saw a movie with Lucille Ball and Latino film icon Desi Arnaz called "The Long, Long Trailer", where they went to Western destinations, like Yosemite, and camped. My dad said, 'if Ricky Ricardo can go camping, so can we.' So we did. … I hear people say 'Camping is a white thing,' but it's not. There's a way bigger world out there for us."

Staff volunteers pull a mountain of tents, sleeping bags, and pads out of a trailer and show the kids how to set up all the gear, then rangers take them on a hike around Bear Lake. Chickaree squirrels, rainbow trout, and hummingbirds all cause the boys to shout with delight as they tear down the trail. One keeps glancing behind him. I ask him why. "Mountain lions," he says. "They eat little boys." I reassure him that nothing's going to eat him and that parks are safe places for kids.

Evening activities include cooking dinner, learning skills like GPS use and fire-building, playing games, and storytelling and s'mores around a campfire. Even a rainstorm doesn't dampen the kids' spirits. The next morning, they help fix pancakes and bacon and eggs, and set off on the aquatic bug collecting adventure while their parents get instruction in finding and using inexpensive camping gear. "It's Camping 101 on steroids," Roberto says. "No entrance fee, no camping fee, it's an intense 27-hour experience."

Roberto describes the Camp Moreno program as having been "born from concern that while outreach programs for minority children have value … for that child to actually develop a true long-term affinity for outdoor experiences in places like national parks, forests, BLM land and state parks, we need to find ways to encourage families to take their children back to (those lands) on a continuing basis." The Camp is meant to help Latino, African American and other “emerging populations” to understand how public lands can enrich their lives. "It's not just education and health and wellness," he says. "There's also an aspirational quality. You take a family in an industrialized place like Commerce City and bring them to Rocky Mountain National Park and suddenly they realize, they see that there were these great geologic upheavals 70 million years ago, they understand we need to preserve these public lands."

And the best way to do that, Roberto says, is to involve entire families. "There's pretty conclusive data over decades that families are one of the keys to increasing visitation of public lands. If you create experiences for kids, that's wonderful, but unless you involve their families too, it doesn't take. You have to get their parents to take them back."

He's also working on ways to "clone himself," he says; for example, he's running an academy at Grand Canyon to train others to run similar camps. "We have 22 requests from national parks and monuments that want to have these programs," says Roberto. "I want to take this nationwide."

Jodi Peterson is HCN's managing editor.

Photos by HCN associate designer Andrew Cullen.

]]>No publisherCommunitiesBlog Post2013/08/07 00:00:00 GMT-6ArticleSeven days to fund an anthology of Ed Quillen's wise, curmudgeonly writinghttp://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/keeping-ed-quillen
Want to help ensure that the West will never forget one of its wisest and most unique voices, writer Ed Quillen? Consider chipping into this Kickstarter project to anthologize his work.

Ed died last year on June 3, at his home in Salida, Colo. "For nearly 30 years, Ed had written about the region's communities and issues with a keen eye for irony and an appreciation for history," we wrote in a blog post memorializing Ed and listing his High Country News essays.

Writer Ed Quillen, who passed away last year

Now, his daughter Abby is publishing an anthology of her dad’s Denver Post columns (as well as an eBook anthology of his High Country News pieces). And she's using Kickstarter, a crowd-funding website, to raise money to cover the costs of the project. Her campaign ends next Wednesday, August 7. She's trying to raise $5,500, and as of today the project has pledges totaling just over $4,500. It's an all-or-nothing deal -- if she doesn't reach the final goal, she doesn't get any of the money.

"(Abby is compiling Ed's) later columns into a sequel to his 1998 collection, Deep in the Heart of the Rockies. The new anthology will be entitled Deeper into the Heart of the Rockies, and the release date is scheduled for November 1. The book will include 120 of Quillen’s best columns published between 1999 and 2012. ...

Quillen wrote about history, politics, water issues, computers, and small town living in his weekly dispatches, which he transmitted to the paper from his home in Salida. He also regularly wrote for High Country News and his work appeared in various other publications, including Colorado Homes and Lifestyles, the Los Angeles Times, and Utne.

“My dad had a knack at humor, an encyclopedic knowledge of Colorado history and lore, and he was never scared to say what he thought about anything,” says Abby (a freelance writer in Oregon). “I’m excited to create something lasting for his longtime fans and hopefully some new readers as well.”

But how to remember Quillen? The rest of the world seems content to drop him in the “liberal” box, but those who knew him, know better. At the Headwaters conferences at Colorado’s Western State College, … he would pop every progressive balloon that had been floated, in that wry way he had of making things sound funny even when they really weren’t, and before we knew it, we’d be howling with laughter at ourselves. ...

He disliked the kind of “yupscale” liberal sensibility that was spreading through the mountain towns he loved, but he also had a passionate love-hate relationship with what “conservative” had come to mean. He began his writing career as a card-carrying Republican, but dropped that when the Republicans became obsessed with militarism, womb control and xenophobia …

So Ed was neither liberal nor conservative in any conventional sense. …

I always thought there would be time to ask someday: “Well, Ed, dammit, what is your vision for America? What measures up, Ed? What’s good enough for your America?”

... Now that Ed is gone, we can all collage our own answers to that question, using the 2-million-plus words he left behind. His “Deep in the Heart of the Rockies” is back in my bathroom, for those mostly quiet and contemplative parts of the day. …

That is what we miss most when someone moves on: Our conversation is over.

]]>No publisherCommunitiesBlog Post2013/08/01 13:08:28 GMT-6ArticleReport from the summer HCN board meetinghttp://www.hcn.org/issues/45.12/report-from-the-summer-hcn-board-meeting
HCN's board of directors met recently, our fund-raising art auction was a success, and several visitors came to call.High Country News' board of directors met in our hometown of Paonia, Colo. at the end of May, to assess the nonprofit's health, discuss our prospects, and savor the Western Slope's beauty. The news was good: HCN continues to expand its reach -- our website, hcn.org, saw one-third more visitors in the first quarter of 2013 compared to last year. And the organization's finances are solid, due to better-than-expected income from readers' donations, grants, subscriptions and advertising.

We discussed how to encourage these trends, particularly regarding the paid subscriber base, which has stayed relatively flat at around 23,000 for about five years. Ideas ranged from improving the variety and presentation of stories on the website to putting more resources into marketing, to convert casual online readers into committed community members and subscribers. Over the rest of the summer, a team of board and staff will incorporate the strongest ideas into a new three-year strategic plan.

Art auction a great successOn June 21st, High Country News held its first-ever art auction, graciously hosted by Andy Wiessner, a longtime board member, and Patsy Batchelder at their home atop a green hill in Snowmass, Colo. Subscribers, artists and friends enjoyed the remarkable views, stunning artwork and delicious food (prepared by Patsy, Andy and our own staff). Former intern Mark Harvey talked about the value of the internship program, and generously donated one of his own black-and-white photographs. Colorado state Sen. Gail Schwartz and Navajo artist Shonto Begay also attended, along with Ed and BetsyMarston, former publisher and editor of HCN. The auction brought in money to support HCN's work, and we're grateful to everyone who made it possible.

Artists and lawyers visit Longtime HCN subscriber Jean Swearingen of Estes Park, Colo., and her daughter, Marta Fonda of Evergreen, Colo., came by our office so that Jean could drop off her art auction donation -- a totem sculpture made of deer vertebrae, depicting various owl species. She laughed when we thanked her, saying, "You have to get rid of them so you can make more." She first saw the beauty of bones, she says, while taking X-rays as a lab tech in Jackson, Wyo. Jean left with a sun-bleached fox skull found by HCN director Paul Larmer in his fields west of town.

Longtime subscribers Scott Hacking, Karen Brunvand and their son, Niles, stopped by on their way to Golden, Colo., from their home in Price, Utah. Niles, a recent graduate of Carbon High School, is headed to the Colorado School of Mines in Golden this fall.

On his way back from the Telluride Mountainfilm festival, Brad Purdy of Boise, Idaho, stopped to say hello. Since writing an essay for HCN in '94 about southwest Idaho's wild Owyhee country, Brad has worked for the Idaho Public Utilities Commission, and now runs his own law practice.

Betty Kuehner stopped by during a trip from Denver, where she works (and reads HCN)at the legendary Tattered Cover bookstore, which is many HCNers' idea of heaven. She recalled visiting Paonia 30 years ago and eating at the restaurant across the street. The town has changed, she said, but not much, although nowadays you can buy local wines here, as she did at the aptly named Delicious Orchards.

Correction

The June 24 editor's note mentioned that writer Jeremy Miller grew up in Queens, N.Y. He actually grew up in Arvada, Colo., and moved to Queens in 2000. HCN regrets the error.

]]>No publisherCommunitiesDear Friends2013/07/22 05:00:00 GMT-6ArticleAbout a disappearance in a national parkhttp://www.hcn.org/wotr/about-a-disappearance-in-a-national-park
The author may have been the last person to hear the voice of a missing hiker at Mesa Verde National ParkThis happens all too often in the rugged backcountry of the West: A hiker goes out for a day, or an afternoon, and never returns. A search is launched, and eventually the person is found safe -- or it ends less happily, and a body is recovered. This time it happened at Mesa Verde National Park in southern Colorado.

On a scorching Sunday afternoon in early June, a man vanished; he'd told his wife he was walking down to Spruce Tree House, a ruin just a quarter-mile away on a paved trail. But he never returned, and by Monday morning the park had organized a search.

It didn't sound promising. Daytime highs were over 100 degrees. The 51-year-old carried no water, no extra gear; he was from Goliad, Texas, near sea level, while much of the park is over 7,000 feet high. So the park sent out searchers on foot, dog teams and horses, and a helicopter clattered low over the rocky canyons all day.

I was visiting the park that Monday afternoon, and I decided to hike the 3-mile-long Petroglyph Point trail, which splits off from the Spruce Tree House trail. Steep and rugged, it sidles along ledges and alcoves, squeezes between tall rocks, and ascends rough stair steps hewn from sandstone blocks. After an hour of walking, I suddenly heard a weary male voice call "I need some help."

I thought of the missing hiker. Perhaps after visiting Spruce Tree House, he'd attempted this trail and run into trouble. I called out several times, but got no response. I thought about going off-trail to look, but figured I'd become Victim #2 if I tried to scramble down those ledges and cliffs. My cellphone had no signal.

I hiked back down the trail as fast as I could, and when I found the chief ranger, I told him what I'd heard. Relief washed over his face as another staffer said, "We thought we heard a call for help in that area yesterday." They quickly began planning to bring in dogs and more searchers. I left the ranger station and stood looking at the opposite side of the canyon, where I'd heard the call. I said a silent prayer.

When I got back to my western Colorado home the following day, I checked the news, thinking I'd read that the hiker been found. Instead, I learned that Mitchell Dale Stehling was still missing, and now, 70 people were looking for him.

As I write this, it's been almost two weeks since Stehling vanished, and the search has been scaled down. "A group of us think he's still somewhere in the park," said chief ranger Jessie Farias. "We've all heard of planned disappearances, but it doesn't smell that way."

The odds of him being found alive are basically zero, though. Perhaps he fell between big rocks in a place where searchers can't see him; perhaps wind shifts made the dogs miss his scent.

Dying alone in the wild sounds like a free and romantic way to exit this earth, and many of my outdoor friends say they’d prefer to perish outside. "Like Lawrence Oates," I’ve told them in agreement, remembering the member of Scott's ill-fated 1911 polar expedition who walked out into a blizzard to die. "On some freezing cold night, I'll say what he did: 'I'm just going outside, and may be some time.' "

My friend, Albert, imagines another sort of ending: "My last moment will be at 12,000 feet in a thunderstorm. There'll be a big flash and all that'll be left is my flask and my hiking boots." And Joe has already picked out a sleeping bag to be buried in.

But is that really how any of us wants to die, alone in the wilderness, unattended except by beetles and vultures? Better, I think, to be with those you love.

The writer Ana Maria Spagna applauds those who "face the gentle night with agonized patience and those brave enough to usher them through, rather than champion one quick cold night in the forest." When it comes to facing death, she writes, "I'll offer comfort. And, when the time comes, I'll take it."

I have no idea if Mitchell Dale Stehling was the man I heard calling for help among the cliffs on that hot Monday afternoon. I don't know anything about him, really, or his family. But I think that, given the choice, his wife and daughters would have wanted the chance to offer him comfort before he died. And I think he would have wanted the chance to receive it.

Jodi Peterson is a contributor to Writers on the Range, an op-ed syndicate of High Country News (hcn.org). She is the managing editor of the magazine in Paonia, Colorado.

]]>No publisherRecreationWriters on the Range2013/06/25 00:00:00 GMT-6ArticleTime is running out to get the poster!http://www.hcn.org/issues/45.11/time-is-running-out-to-get-the-poster
Colorado River poster available; skipped issue in early June; clarificationWe're in the home stretch of our special referral promotion to enlist friends, family and colleagues to join the HCN community of people serious about the West. More than 125 new readers have stepped up to subscribe and support the work we do here. And their reward? Besides the high-quality journalism we're known for, they'll receive this longtime favorite illustration of the Colorado River Basin. We've received many calls and emails asking about purchasing this limited edition poster, but there's only one way to get it ... and that's to recruit a friend or purchase a gift subscription before the June 30 deadline. (Visit hcn.org/friends for details.)

Skipping an issueIn our 22-issue-per-year publishing schedule, we'll be skipping the next issue. Look for HCN in your mailbox again around July 22, and in the meantime check our website, hcn.org, for fresh news and commentary.

VisitorsThe warm weather brought us a brand-new subscriber, John Johnson. He came from Denver to our western Colorado town, to visit friends, and dropped in to our office after a bike ride and a visit to a local winery. He's no stranger here, though; he was Paonia's town manager in the early '80s.

Ron Singleton also stopped by HCN headquarters while scouting out Paonia as a "place to grow old gracefully." He's retired and currently living in Fort Collins, Colo., where he does a lot of bicycling.

David Meens of Boulder, Colo., came to see us while enroute to the Mountainfilm festival held each year in Telluride, Colo. He was scouting out HCN as a possible stop on a West-wide trip he leads each summer for the University of Colorado-Boulder's INVST Community Studies program, which surveys regional social and environmental issues with an emphasis on community service.

Buena Vista, Colo., residents Tyler Grimes and Beth Johnston dropped by; they've both done work for Colorado Central magazine, which was founded by the late, much-missed writer Ed Quillen. Beth is a photographer and Tyler is a writer who also works at Buena Vista's Weathervane Farm. They were checking out farms here in the North Fork Valley. They're getting married this month -- congratulations!

ClarificationIn our May 27 feature "Haywired," Jonathan Thompson wrote, in reference to the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station and the handful of other power plants surrounding it, "There is probably no other five-square-mile patch on the planet with more electrical generating capacity." However, a few massive hydroelectric dams overseas, most notably China's Three Gorges, can generate far more power.

]]>No publisherCommunitiesColorado RiverDear Friends2013/06/24 05:00:00 GMT-6ArticleDeath in the deserthttp://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/death-in-the-desert
Thoughts on a lost hiker in Mesa Verde National Park.Updated 6/24/13

Two weekends ago I traveled to Mesa Verde National Park in southern Colorado to do some reporting for a future story on diversity in the parks system. On Monday morning, the 10th, I was waiting in the administration office for my appointment with Cliff Spencer, the park's black superintendent, to begin. I heard bursts coming over the radio: "last seen ... search team found some tracks ... helicopter coming … " Cliff told me that a hiker had disappeared the previous afternoon; he'd told his wife he was going to walk down to Spruce Tree House, a ruin just a quarter-mile away down a paved trail. But he'd never returned, and now the park was mounting a full search and rescue effort.

It didn't sound promising. Daytime highs were over 100 in the park's rocky canyons. The 51-year-old was carrying no water, no extra gear. He was on vacation with his family from Goliad, Texas, a city near sea level, while much of the park is over 7,000 feet in elevation. So park staff mounted a full-scale search effort, with searchers on foot, dog teams, horses, even a helicopter that clattered low over the canyons all day.

Late that afternoon, despite the 102-degree heat, I decided to hike the 3-mile-long Petroglyph Point trail, which splits off from the Spruce Tree House trail and leads upward along the east wall of Spruce Canyon. Steep and rugged, it sidles along ledges and alcoves, squeezes between tall rocks, and ascends rough stairsteps hewn from sandstone blocks. Just after I passed the panel of petroglyphs for which the trail was named, I heard a man's voice from somewhere up ahead. "I need some help," he called, sounding gravelly, weary. I couldn't pinpoint the location, and I thought whoever I'd heard was probably talking to some companions. I kept walking. But when I reached the point where the trail climbs out of the canyon, perhaps ten minutes later, I realized that I hadn't seen or heard any other hikers, ahead or behind.

Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park

Then I suddenly thought of the missing man. Perhaps after visiting Spruce Tree House, he'd decided to go up this trail to see the petroglyphs, tried to take a shortcut back down the canyon wall, and had fallen. I went back to where I'd heard the voice and called out several times, but got no response. I thought about going off trail to look, but figured I'd become Victim #2 if I tried to scramble down the ledges and cliffs. My cell phone had no signal. Hiking back quickly to find a ranger seemed to be about all I could do. Sweating and a little shaky, I reached the museum an hour later, and told the woman behind the counter what I'd heard. "The chief ranger is going to want to talk to you," she exclaimed, excited. Leading me to his office, she said, "We don't like it when things like this happen."

The chief ranger was excited too. Cautious relief washed over his face. "We thought we heard a call for help in that area yesterday," said one of the other rangers in his office. He had me tell my story again to the leader of the search teams, who immediately began planning to bring dogs and more searchers into that area. I felt hopeful that what I'd heard would help them find the man, who probably wouldn't last much longer without water.

I left the ranger station and stood looking at the opposite side of the canyon, where I'd heard the call. I said a silent prayer.

When I got back to Paonia, Colo., HCN’s home base, last Tuesday afternoon, I checked the news, thinking I'd read that the hiker been found, was dehydrated and maybe injured but would be okay. Instead, I read that Mitchell Dale Stehling was still missing, and 60 to 70 people were now searching for him. His family remained optimistic, reported the Cortez Journal.

Now, it's been more than a week since Stehling vanished. The search has been scaled down, and the odds of him being found alive are close to zero. Perhaps he fell between big rocks in a place where searchers can't see him; perhaps wind shifts made the dogs miss his scent. The park's press release on June 15 conveys the searchers' frustration:

On Friday, the trail where Stehling was last seen and nearby canyons were again searched. Rangers used the park's helicopter to search the canyons and mesas of the park while ground-based teams thoroughly searched nearby canyons and trails. The saturation of this area by searchers, dog teams, a helicopter, and horse patrol provided a great deal of coverage, but resulted in no clues.

Saturday, search managers plan to scale back to a continuous, but limited mode in which a small team of rangers will continue to focus their search in the areas where Mr. Stehling was last seen. Flyers with Mr. Stehling's picture and description remain posted throughout the park.

I think of Edward Abbey's thoughts on a similar situation, in "Dead Man at Grandview Point" (a chapter of Desert Solitaire):

Looking out on this panorama of light, space, rock and silence I am inclined to congratulate the dead man on his choice of jumping-off place; he had good taste. He had good luck – I envy him the manner of his going: to die alone, on a rock under sun at the brink of the unknown, like a wolf, like a great bird, seems to me very good fortune indeed. To die in the open, under the sky, far from the insolent interference of leech and priest, before this desert vastness opening like a window onto eternity – that surely was an overwhelming stroke of rare good luck.

Rugged canyons in Mesa Verde National Park

But was it really, Ed? Yeah, it sounds like a free and romantic way to exit this earth, and along with many of my outdoor friends, I've talked about wanting to die alone outside when the time comes. "Like Lawrence Oates," I say, a member of Scott's ill-fated 1911 polar expedition who walked out into a blizzard to die. "On some freezing cold night, I'll say what he did: 'I'm just going outside, and may be some time.' " My friend Albert imagines another sort of ending: "My last moment will be at 12,000' in a thunderstorm. There'll be a big flash and all that'll be left is my flask and my hiking boots." And Joe has already picked out which of his sleeping bags will be his coffin.

But is that truly how any of us wants to die, alone in the wilderness, unattended except by beetles and vultures? I recall also the wise and gentle words of Ana Maria Spagna, a counterpoint to old Macho Ed, writing about how gladly she took care of her dying mother in the hospital in her essay "Natural Comfort":

When I die, I'd just as soon die surrounded by those I love. And while I live, I'd just as soon live like my fellow springtime travelers, all those familiar faces bleary-eyed in the elevators of the cancer hospital, those who face the gentle night with agonized patience and those brave enough to usher them through, rather than champion one quick cold night in the forest. I'll offer comfort. And, when the time comes, I'll take it.

I have no idea if Mitchell Dale Stehling was the man I heard calling for help among the cliffs on that hot Monday afternoon. I don't know anything about him, really, or about his family. But I think that, given the choice, his wife and daughters would have wanted to offer comfort too. And I think he would have taken it.